Plasmonic Photothermal Cancer Therapy: Nanoparticle-embedded Tumor-tissue-mimicking Phantoms for Visualizing Photothermal Temperature Distribution

Scope of research basically involves developing tumor tissue and making phantoms for plasmonic photothermal cancer therapeutics to validate the numerical simulations, as well as for specifying the therapeutic parameters for in vivo experiments to assess the therapeutic outcome. This protocol bridges the gap between numerical modeling and experimental validation for plasmonic photothermal therapy, as well as estimation of therapeutic parameters for in vivo evaluation before clinical translation. This protocol offers a cost effective evaluation of plasmonic photothermal interaction for solid tumors using agarose phantoms with thermocouple monitoring, thereby minimizing the need of animals for in vivo testing.

Phantom based evaluation allows validation of simulation to improve treatment accuracy and tuning parameters like nanoparticle concentration and iteration settings to support safe and effective plasmonic photothermal cancer therapeutics. In the future, we want to develop more realistic tumor tissue making phantoms involving melanin, hemoglobin, as well as blood flow. Also, we want to explore the multi-site injections for large tumors.